


Cold

by Jeldenil



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Don't copy to other sites, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22037131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeldenil/pseuds/Jeldenil
Summary: Draco feels terribly cold at random times. Somehow this seems to coincide with Potter being in danger.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 337





	Cold

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for the drarry discord drabble challenge of december 2019, for the prompt "did you get the chills" It was clear, however that the maximum wordcount just wouldn't do this AU justice. So I wrote another drabble and finished this one later. 
> 
> Many thanks to my betas, Tedah and donnarafiki <3
> 
> \---  
> I have not given permission for this fic to be present on any App. I make no money out of this. Do not use applications to read this. Every fic on Ao3 can be downloaded to be read offline.  
> 

He couldn’t remember the first time it happened. He’d been too young. Later, his Mother told him he’d woken her up with his cries. 

“You were inconsolable. It was only the next day that we found out the Dark Lord had been vanquished, and we forgot about your mysterious woes. It didn’t happen again.”

It did, though, but Draco never told his parents about it. It’d been right at the end of his first year, and he’d been calmly working on a Potions essay when he suddenly and inexplicably felt cold all over his body, like he’d been dipped in ice. 

It was frightening, especially since he hadn’t a clue where the feeling had come from, and it took hours for it to pass. He wasn’t sick, it was summer; no reason for him to feel like this. Without knowing why, he kept it to himself. He didn’t warn the nurse, his friends or family. 

When a bunch of Gryffindors showed up in the Main Hall by the end of the day, the feeling had passed and he got distracted by hating Potter for stealing his House’s rightful glory. 

It kept happening during most of his school career - seemingly random bouts of sudden cold, and it took him two more years to figure out that whenever it happened, it had something to do with Potter having been in danger of some kind. In the library, he found what it meant somewhere in an ancient tome nobody had touched in many years, judging by its layer of dust. 

Potter was his soulmate.

Draco couldn’t stand it. The chills now terrified him more than ever. 

They had no business visiting him. Potter being his soulmate wasn't just ridiculous and uncalled for, it was impossible. They were polar opposites - he hated the attention seeking hero, and Potter hated him in return. It could never be.

Still, Potter was in absolute, undeniable danger. Draco knew. He believed Potter when he said the Dark Lord was back - he'd felt it in his very own bones. 

It hurt that time, and Draco had cringed in agony on the stands, knowing something must have gone very, very wrong but unable to raise the alarm without risking his secret getting exposed. 

The next day, Pansy had confronted him about it.

He tried to lie to her about it, but she saw right through it - they'd grown up together and she saw every twitch, and heard every tremble in his voice. 

“Oh Draco,” she'd said, and that was that. From then on, he had someone who knew. Someone he could confide in. Naturally, they grew closer. 

With Pansy by his side, it became easier for Draco to distance himself from Potter. To work openly against the Boy Who Lived. 

But the Dark Lord was a cruel master. Too cruel for Draco to keep anyone close. It was too dangerous.

And when he lay bleeding on a cold bathroom floor, he thought he saw Potter shiver. 

The worst was yet to come.

It was cold all year when Draco returned to school and Potter was on the run. He didn't know anymore whether Potter was in imminent danger or under a vague general threat.

Until he felt it, closer than ever, freezing him to the floor as Potter was led before him.

“I can't be sure,” Draco said, and now he knew with definite certainty that Potter was cold, too. 

That night, he wasn't cold but Potter would have definitely been freezing. Draco wasn't in any state to wonder whether Potter knew what it meant.

And it got worse.

He knew something was about to happen that morning. He'd been cold on and off, which must have meant Potter was doing heroics again. 

And suddenly, Potter was there, in the castle. Draco lost sight of him soon after Severus fled, but he only had to follow the cold to find him back, in the room of Hidden Things. 

Their bond may have been what protected them from burning.

It was the first time Draco felt even remotely grateful for it. 

Rubbing his numb body, he found himself in immediate danger soon enough again. He needed to run, to hide, and soon lost track of Potter in the ensuing chaos. It was wild, he was still cold, and he knew Potter must be too. He got shot at by stray spells, and sometimes by direct ones. His Mother's wand was as good as useless for blocking anything well enough.

But what really hit him with the force of an avalanche was the sudden knowledge, inexplicable, that Potter was gone. 

Draco, helpless to the sheer devastating power of it, fell down on the floor like he'd been struck by a dozen stunners. 

Complete silence overwhelmed him. The world around him had frozen. He could feel, but not hear, the erratic rhythm of his heart. It was pure panic. 

No!  
No!  
No!

And then, faintly, as if by some sort of divine intervention, he started warming up. 

He could move again.

Sound returned to him, in a jumbled, overpowering whoosh. 

He scrambled up, stumbled to the courtyard, where everyone was gathered. 

The Dark Lord approached them, with Hagrid in tow, sobbing over Potter's dead body.

But Draco knew.  
He knew.  
Potter wasn't dead.

The event unfolded both too fast and agonizingly slow, but suddenly Potter was moving, and shouting, and Draco was by his side, defending him, defending his warmth. 

And after, when all was done and the Dark Lord was gone, they were warm together.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated


End file.
